[jyounker]

I can attest to what @lacker has written. In twenty years I've been visiting Jewel lake, I have never seen it completely dry. The stream running in has gone dry. The marsh under the boardwalk is bone dry. The ferns are now kindling. The turtles are gone.

On the fog-ward side of the hill (the wet side; also known as Berkeley) the succulents are dying. Until this year, growing a jade plant (and many other succulents) required no watering. The mist in the air was enough. They're now red and their leaves are shriveled. They are dying from the drought. I see this every day.

The media is not making things up, and they are not sensationalizing this. If anything the media is under-reporting how bad things are.